The Zen of Jesus

Lets play with this Easter holiday from a timeless view point, a Zen view point. How can we resurrect Jesus Christ from Easter? He bury him there in time, in the past, and just remember his Big Event as if it were history. There is no power in that, no power to transform your life from suffering (the curcifixion) to joy (the Resurrection). If Jesus is the Way, the you should be able go through your suffering (the cross) and be liberated from the cross (stress of life) as Jesus did. But you can’t do this when Jesus is in the past.

So how doe one find Jesus Now so one can walk the death and resurrection, not as he walked it, but as he is walking it now as You. Lets play with this.

What we are going to talk about is a playful way of viewing Jesus Christ, so don’t take what I say seriously. It’s all in play. I want to look at Jesus from a Timeless place instead of a historical place. If you find yourself irritated with what I’m going to say, then you are taking my play seriously, at that is a form of the curcifixion. You should ask then, why am I crucifying myself here with this irritation, this lance in my side (mind). So when you tune in, just relax…it’s play.

Only when we love ourselves can we love Christ. Is there a difference? If there is, then is not this difference the Crucifixion. Is not the Resurrection the Seeing that all is One, while yet two?

Religion in America has locked itself in time, one the materialistic field, and from the flat land Religion has made Jesus into a ghost and God a false Idol.

The mystical path of knowledge of God and union with God through devotion as been removed, leaving only membership in a social/religious institution that is ground in a belief, with each division of the religion believing its belief is the One Truth. The Church is fragmented and no belief can put it back together again. I went to the East to put the pieces back together again.

Not arguing…Jesus does died for our sins…but we have to die with him, let go with him. The problem with the one view that Jesus is in time, in the past, is that it is a right view, but a partial view that leaves out the rest of the story, which is the timeless view. Beliefs are both our savior and our crucifixion. Beliefs stabilize us in time but at the same time create our crucifixion, our suffering. Every belief held seriously is a nail in our cross.

The reason Jesus Christ is constantly being crucified by his followers is that the modern mind has lost its ability to understand metaphor and accept ambiguity. We want our religion to be clear and distinct, certain and logical. But religion is an Ambiguity Delivery System. Religion’s role is to contain ambiguity, and the Cross and Christ is such a container, but its a can without an opener. We don’t know how to release the power of Christ in our EVeryday mind for the cessation of suffering that comes from the ambiguity that is not contained. We just keep kicking the pain of our crucifixion down the road in time, hoping for a better outcomes tomorrow.

If we can’t apply the healing salve of the Crucifixion/Resurrection to our everyday mind with good effect, what good is it? If the medicine doesn’t work, what good is it? JC is Alchemy. Christ takes the base metal of our everyday mind and turns it into the gold of self realization. This is Zen. What is enlightenment, the monk asked the master: Everyday mind is enlightenment.

Okay, what in the hell does that mean. If enlightenment is heaven and your mundane suffering conflicted everyday mind is earth, then your everyday mind is heaven. There is no separation between earth and heaven, between time and the timeless, between form and the formless, between God and man…They are One…yet two. But we try to find the One through the Two. And Two can’t become One. So we are not looking in the right place.

Well, being Easter weekend I’m not letting Jesus go. The two views of Jesus is one from inside time and the other in the timeless. Jesus in time as the only view creates a problem. Jesus in time is something and we are something else. These two somethings can’t be one something. The two somethings are incompatible. So from this view alone, Jesus becomes the savior (as something) of me (as something. Jesus died to relieve me of suffering, the suffering of being separated from Jesus as the mediator between me and God. God is the Source of Me, but I can tap into my source if I am separated from my Source, and because Jesus is a something different than me I’m separated from Jesus too. I feel in exile and all my hope is in the future when the promise will come true. But now….well, I’ll be patient. Jesus will return like MacArthur to the Philippines.

This view of Jesus in time puts Jesus in the past and Jesus in the future, but there is no living Jesus as Me. There is no Way to bridge this gap.

The mystical path of knowledge of God and union with God through devotion as been removed, leaving only membership in a social/religious institution that is ground in a belief, with each division of the religion believing its belief is the One Truth. The Church is fragmented and no belief can put it back together again. I went to the East to put the pieces back together again.

Yes…its the metaphor by which we can put the pieces back together, to contain the ambiguity of This is This and This is That. Jesus is God; Jesus is man…That’s ambiguous, What contains the ambiguity? The Metaphor of Jesus Christ points in two ways at once: one finger points to the historical objective Jesus in time; the other finger points to Me as subject, as center. The I and the IT become one in this Single Idea that rises up out of duality. I am the world and the world is me.

I am the center of the cosmos; I am in the cosmos. As Jesus said, Be of the world and in the world; I and the Father are one means I and the World (Father) are One; but the opposite is true: I and the world are not One but two…..The tension of this ambiguity creates an explosion of Awakening.

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Awaken Insight Meditation

AIM is a website where I share my Dharma Insights in my everyday mind. My daily experiences are metaphors that point to the Truth that is One. Paths are many, but the Dharma is One. I invite you to walk with me on my journey. I also invite you to enter into creative dialogue with the post, for then we push it forward and get some traction in our life.